What a fantastic month the children have all had enjoying the Spring weather and spending lots of time in their outdoor environments. The children have enjoyed many Forest School Sessions looking for insects and exploring the ever-changing environment watching the Spring flowers grow, and changing colours of the leaves. The children have also enjoyed an array of outdoor activities such as water play, cooking a feast in the mud kitchen and ball games with peers.
The Babies have been having lots of fun exploring their topic of Sensory Play and they have been introduced to a variety of different textured sensory experiences such as gloop, shaving foam and ice. Their favourite sensory experience was the gloop, and they used their senses to touch the mixture and they used their whole bodies to explore. The babies have also been interested in the sounds of musical instruments and they have enjoyed listening to the different sounds that they have made and begun moving their bodies to the sounds that they could hear.
In the Baby unit we have enjoyed continuing our topic of under the sea. We have enjoyed making our own sea animal pictures as well as designing our own shells. The children in the baby unit have also enjoyed exploring water play and adding under the sea animals to the water. Singing different songs about under the sea animals like 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive helps support early communication.
EYFS link:
CL – Has a strong exploratory impulse. (8 – 20Months)
Personal Social and Emotional Development – Making Relationships – Plays alongside others (16 – 26 months)
Fun Fact – Most fish don’t have eyelids.
Our Toddlers unit have had fun looking at their project of animals and they have become interested in the different animals that they could find in the zoo. Our Toddlers unit have explored the animals in sensory trays, and they have had lots of fun using their fine motor skills to hold the animals and help them jump in the muddy gloop and crunch through the cereal sensory activity. The Toddlers have enjoyed their outdoor activities using mathematical language to pour and empty containers through water play and they have measured sand and talked about the numbers they could see whilst filling their buckets to make sand houses for the dinosaurs. They have also explored bubble mixture.
Our Toddler unit have shown a key interest in the colour purple, participating in activities using pipettes to squeeze out the water onto tissue paper in order to make an effect, producing butterflies. The children in the Little toddler unit have also enjoyed lots of outdoor activities, they have used cars to move around the garden in, and enjoying to pretend to fill up the cars with fuel and then washing the cars down after.
EYFS link:
M – Enjoys filling and emptying containers (16 – 26Months)
Physical Development – Moving and Handling – Shows control in holding and using jugs to pour, hammers, books and mark-making tools (22 – 36 months)
Fun Fact – Porphyrophobia is fear of the colour purple.
The Pre-Schoolers have had a fantastic month looking at their project of insects. They have been very busy, creating a Bug Exploration Area looking at insects, using their binoculars and magnifying glasses to look more closely. The children were amazed to see that butterflies have legs, and this has led them to research in books looking at butterflies and how they develop from caterpillars, drawing their own butterflies and looking at how symmetry works.
Following on from our Pre-Schools Dinosaurs project, the children have been extending their activity ideas by using playdough to make their own dinosaur models, drawing dinosaurs using the shadows from the sun on paper and then measuring dinosaurs to see which one is the biggest and which one is the longest. The children used salt dough to make their own dinosaur fossils and they have used these within their sand tray to pretend to be palaeontologists.
Our Pre-School children have shown an interest in the topic, ‘All About Me’. Following on from this the children have begun to learn similarities between themselves and their peers, looking at eye and hair colour. The children have used mirrors and have begun to make their own self-portraits. To make their own self-portraits the children have used various collage materials and pens to make their designs. The children have also created their own height chart, measuring each other and comparing who is the tallest. The children also made their own mirrors to use to investigate as well.
Our Pre-School children have also enjoyed moving in different ways. We have been practising hopping, jumping and rolling. We also added in some animal music and acted out how the different animals move. The children have also enjoyed creating and designing their own obstacle courses, adding crates, balancing beams and tunnels.
EYFS link:
UTW – Shows care and concern for living things and the environment. (30-50Months)
FUN FACT: Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 tree’s, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water.
